When I remember to write "2013" on my checks. Of course I don't write many checks any more, so it could be a long time after Jan 1.

Back before online bill pay, I used to remember the new year right away. But, oddly, along about March or April I'd relapse for some reason and start writing the previous year again. The only thing I can figure is that was when I stopped having to explicitly think about the year anymore.

I have heard that the risk of an airplane crash as a function of the pilots total flying hours have a maximum somewhere in the hundredes of hours. In his first hundred flying hours, the pilot is explicitely remembering all the thing he should, and with enough training, he is instinctively remembering them. But between these two points there is no mechanism for remembering them.

@93 - making the assumption you are in the U.S. - it's probably because you were dealing with the previous year's taxes (federal, state, local) which shifted the mindset from "it's the new year" to "previous year".

What city? I lived for a year on the edge of Philadelphia's Chinatown, and one of the best things that happened that year is when I (without thinking anything about it) had lunch a restaurant there on Chinese New Year. Everything seemed normal enough -- maybe slightly more crowded than usual -- until a dragon and tens of thousands of firecrackers appeared;) A mood-boosting spectacle.

You gotta love a New Year Celebration that involves an entire country in a Water Fight for a week. Everyone is fair game. I once saw a police sergeant on a motocycle, covered from head-to-toe in white powder and drenched in water. His service revolver and radio were encased in zip-lock plastic bags.
As he rode past, everyone was throwing water at him.

Last year was the celebration of the dragon (water dragon to be specific). Actually, we are still in the year of the dragon as the Chinese new year for 2013 doesn't start until February 10th. Which BTW is year of the snake.

The winter solstice (December 21/22) makes the most sense to me. It's only dependent on the Earth's position on its orbit and its tilt, so it should be very predictable and stable, and is easily observable from having the shortest day of the year on that day. (Of course, in the southern hemisphere they get the longest day of the year.)

Off the poll options, the southward equinox comes closest, being a quarter of an orbit off.

For me, new years eve comes halfway through the Yule celebrations, which start at Winter solstice and lasts for 20 days. It's a good time for a another party within the bigger party.

That New Yerars Eve falls within the winter holiday celebrations is normal even in mainstream - in Sweden, for example, Jul starts at December 24th and ends on January 6th.It's pretty much only the US and followers who ends their Christmas and toss the tree out at boxing day. But to compensate, they have stretched a non-celebrating version of the holidays in the other direction, and where a traditionalist European wouldn't light the tree until Christmas eve, an American might have had it lit since late November. But 13 or 20 days of festivities with special food, relatives and singing carols, no, they miss out on that. I don't think there's any American holday that lasts for more than one day, or four if counting three days off next to it.

Another missing option is Samhain. Many neo-pagans, and particularly Wiccans reckon that the new year starts when the god dies and is reborn at (hardcore) the second moon holiday (esbat) after fall equinox or (mainstream) at Hallowe'en.

If I were to choose when new years should start, I would shift the calendar a couple of days to coincide with perihelion. And rename the months so that sept- oct- nov- and dec- would fall on the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months instead of the mess we have now.

I never understood why the calendar did not start on the solstice. A lunar calendar may not be interested in the solstices and equinoxes, but a solar calendar, based on the sun, should be very much in line with the most significant solar events. Just as lunar calendars are lined up with the phases of the moon, the first of every January, April, July, and October would be lined up with the solstices and equinoxes.

The move from Julian to Gregorian happened before, I don't see why it couldn't happen again. It

This year I half joked with friends that I was celebrating the New Year at the Winter Solstice for to me, getting back light means a lot more then some arbitrary Gregorian Calendar date based on some religious act. Calendars come and Calendars go, but the Sun is basically eternal. A New Year makes sense when the Earth passes the point in orbit where the days become longer (at one end) and shorter at the other. With the Winter Solstice being the beginning I'd revamp the calendar around the four primary So

paganos means folks from countryside and they apparently didn't wanted to gave up their traditions to new religion(christian), that came from Roman cities, so they earned their name. So, let's not call any new religion pagan, even if it is built by incorporating some pagan elements.
If you feel bad for the Pagans, then how do you think Cretans and Lesbians feel?

I would think that the equinox would be a better baseline for the year, if the ease of determining which day is the 1st is the key metric. You can determine whether today is an equinox based on the place the sun rises, rather than having to wait until sunset the following day to determine that a solstice was the longest/shortest day.

>and is easily observable from having the shortest day of the year on that day

Sure but how do you observe it in advance? I mean, we have to plan this party, you can't just show up a month later and say "yeah it's looking like dec 21 was the shortest day, but lets measure some more to be extra careful"

here we go again...well, kinda... if you agree with what you say, because and ISO is not static and is changeable.

can you ask yourself, if you are x years old - in which year of life are you living?People are mixing 2 different conceptions - number of current year and counting system of years:1. Before your birthday of 1st year, you were 0 years *old*.2. Before your birthday of 1st year, you were enjoying your 1st *year* - not 0 year.

You don't tell me anything new. Birthday number x marks the end of year number x of your life. The same applies to years: new year 2000 marks the end of year 2000. If you begin counting at zero (like with birthdays), of course, as the ISO standard does. If you prefer the gregorian calender, then new year 2000 is actually the beginning of year number 2000. Because there's no year zero in this calendar.

I like to think that there were two millenniums– the People’s Millennium and the Pedants’ Millennium (either name can be adjusted to be kinder or more scathing). The People’s Millennium was more exciting to the average person, and also contained the threat of the Y2K bug. By the time the Pedants’ Millennium arrived, people were over the whole thing.

I had a fun Pedants’ Millennium myself, organizing a pub crawl that was so successful that only my friend and me made it to

There is the correct one, and the incorrect one. This allowing inaccuracies to be around becasue the 'common person' think it's correct just feeds into the the balance fallacy. The belief that all opinions carry the same weight.

In western culture, the vernal equinox. To the Persians, New Year! Also, the name of a fantastic IPA made by one of my friends. The headlong rush of brighter, greener days, and a beer to boot. What's not to like?

Lunar New Year, you insensitive clod! It's celebrated by more cultures than the Chinese, after all.

Chinese New Year is very distinct: there's a week of nonstop fireworks. And yes, I do mean nonstop. People shoot off rockets 24/7 for a week. The smoke from the metals that make the colors is so thick you'd think you were in a London fog. It's the worst possible New Year celebration for anyone even vaguely concerned with health.

Halloween is one of the greatest of the New Year celebrations. Ghosts and ghouls were supposed to be able to come out at the juncture between the old and new year. The tradition of dressing up in costume was to scare away or confuse the real ghosts and ghouls.
Of course, nowadays, it is about candy which is what fuels many a programmer....

Up here in the arse end of Finland, they're having a fireworks display - at 9pm, ostensibly so the kids can see it without having to stay up too late. (Actually so the adults can get them tucked away and get well and truly plastered before midnight.)

To be honest, I don't know why they don't make it even earlier. It'll be dark by 3 anyway...

I celebrate the new year by attending Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

This isn't really "Good-old Gregorian January 1st". When Gregory XIII introduced the new calendar in the 16th century, new year's day was the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, and that's the way the calendar was until the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council restored the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God to the 1st, which is when it had been celebrated in ancient times since the early councils established the dogma of Theotokos.

So, I think I'd rather say I celebrate the New-Fangled Gregorian January 1st.

Obviously the right New Year in the 1st of March. It makes September the seventh month, October the eights, November the ninth which makes much more sense, since they are named after these numbers. It as some crazy honk who changed New Year to January.

The Romans celebrated Natalis Solis Invicti at the time of the solstice, shortest day of the year. I skip the morning half and focus solely on the evening part.There is a day that marks my personal start of the yearly cycle, and it has everything to do with the earliest sunset of the year [wikipedia.org], around December 5 or 6.By the time December 31 comes around, sunsets are already 10 minutes later than three weeks before. The later the sunset, the better.

The winter/spring cross-quarter day is the halfway point between the winter soltice and spring equinox. Apart from any astrological or other significance it might have, it is a good marker for when the days start getting longer FAST.

Oh, hell yeah. I celebrated New Year 3 times last year: Western, Vietnamese, and Thai. Songkran was the best. Soaked head to toe, pool dance party until 3am. Buy your super-soaker early. Stores sell out.